杏MAP导航

By Devin Watkins

The Great Age Foundation held an event on Saturday in the Paul VI Hall, entitled 鈥淭he Caress and the Smile,鈥� which brought together over 6,000 grandparents and grandchildren to highlight the rights of the elderly and society鈥檚 duty to them.

杏MAP导航 Francis greeted participants and thanked Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, which helped promote the event.

In his address, the 杏MAP导航 highlighted the importance of young people and the elderly spending time together, saying their shared love makes the world better, richer, and wiser.

Excluding no one

The Holy Father focused first on how intergenerational love makes us better people.

He told a story he had heard from his own grandmother about a young boy whose grandfather humiliated him when he ate sloppily at table.

After the grandfather made his grandson sit at a table by himself, the boy began to tinker with a hammer and nails. His father then asked him what he was doing, and the boy replied: 鈥淚鈥檓 building a table for you, for when you grow old and have to eat alone!鈥�

杏MAP导航 Francis said the lesson he learned from his grandmother was never to exclude anyone, just as Jesus never excludes or humiliates anyone.

鈥淚t is only by being together with love, not excluding anyone, that we become better, more human!鈥� said the 杏MAP导航.

Overcoming divisions and loneliness

He went on note that love between the elderly and the young makes our societies richer, especially since they risk an impoverished humanity because everyone specializes in a few fields without sharing and thinking of others.

There is only one world, said the 杏MAP导航, adding that it is made up of many generations.

鈥淒ifferent generations and peoples, if harmonized, can reveal the wonderful splendor of humanity and creation, like the facets of a great diamond,鈥� he said.

杏MAP导航 Francis urged everyone not to heed voices that call for us to 鈥渢hink for yourself鈥� or 鈥測ou don鈥檛 need anyone.鈥�

Such an attitude, he said, leads to loneliness and a throwaway culture in which the elderly are left alone to spend their last years away from their loved ones.

鈥淟et us build this world together,鈥� he said, 鈥渘ot only by developing assistance programs but by cultivating various projects where the passing years are not seen as a loss that diminishes someone, but as a good that grows and enriches everyone: and as such are appreciated and not feared.鈥�

Refreshing society

杏MAP导航 Francis then recalled that love shared between generations makes us wiser, like the elderly Simeon and Anna who were the only people who recognized Jesus as the Son of God when His parents brought Him to the Temple.

Society, said the 杏MAP导航, forgets things quickly when grandparents are ignored.

鈥淟isten to [grandparents], especially when they teach you with their love and their testimony to cultivate the most important affections, which are not obtained by force, do not appear with success, but fill life,鈥� he said.

Grandparents, added the 杏MAP导航, can also teach younger generations about the horrors of war and the importance of seeking peace.

鈥淲hen you, grandparents and grandchildren, elderly and young, are together, when you see and hear each other often, when you take care of each other,鈥� concluded 杏MAP导航 Francis, 鈥測our love is a breath of fresh air that refreshes the world and society and makes us all stronger, beyond family ties.鈥�